How one Rise client is increasing inside sales by tracking seller personal brand development online

In the classic book on change “Who Moved My Cheese?” two mice have been trained to get their daily cheese from a certain point in a labyrinth. When the cheese then runs out the two mice behave differently – one keeps coming back to the same place, hoping the cheese will return, the other sets out for pastures new, ultimately to find a new source of cheese elsewhere in the labyrinth.

We human behave in much the same way when change comes our way.

For sales professionals, the “cheese” is where we get our next order from. For inside sales reps, sitting at a desk somewhere in the company office, it is all too easy to sit back and wait for the cheese to come to you – inbound sales calls and repeat orders all require no effort on the part of the rep.

However when it comes to selling to other businesses (B2B) the times they are a changing.

Just take a look at these stats:

90% of B2B customer buying decisions start online (Forrester)

75% of B2B buyers use social media to research vendors (IDC)

57% of the buyer’s journey takes place before a sales professional is involved. (CEB)

If these trends continue, pretty soon that ringing phone with potential new orders is going to dry up. Unless the sales rep is found on digital, they will never get that all important call.

This has led many organisations, including one large tech company that uses Rise, to provide re-skilling opportunities for their sales reps. Reps can be trained in creating a findable personal brand online, engaging an audience and then being found when a new purchase is imminent.

But training is only half the battle.

What really matters is what happens back at the desk during the daily 9 to 5. Are reps putting into practice the new skills they’ve been taught? Are they becoming power users of the tools provided by the business?

It is here that success tracking comes in. Our client is using Rise to provide a tracking score for each rep across a number of behaviours and tools. Each week the rep receives their personal score and a breakdown of how they scored it across different categories. The rep can drill down further and understand what activities they’ve managed to do this week, and which ones have regressed. Insights are provided into the metrics alerting them with, for example, declining behaviour 3 weeks in a row or celebrating a personal best.

Sellers get a weekly personal score tracking on digital behaviours and sales tool use that contribute to online selling success. This means training can continue with automated coaching outside the classroom.

Activity and engagement is tracked in this way across multiple systems including internal CRM & seller tools, and external social media such as Twitter, Slideshare, Linkedin and blogs,

To drive further engagement with the program sellers can see the top 5 worldwide scores and top 5 for their region. This gives them a clear benchmark to aim for when trying to optimise their behaviour.

The key to the success of this program, now 3 years old, has been seeing the increase in desired behaviours across the whole seller population. For example, reps have on average increased their number of Linkedin connections by 83 each.

If you’d like to discover more or discuss, how you can run a success tracking program for your reps and partners who are making the transition to digital selling, then get in touch via the @risedotglobal Twitter account.